Historical Graphic Novels

For everybody who thinks that the Spartan’s were the squeaky clean heroes of democracy portrayed in 300 (the graphic novel and the film).

Three is a fictional tale of three Helots – the slave class that resided in Greece, set a century after the Battle of Thermopylae and their attempt to escape from 300 Spartans despatched to kill them.A longbow-man’s view of the Battle of Crecy, written by Warren Ellis. Crecy is a relatively brief introduction to one of the most important medieval battles that England fought in Europe. It contains a copious amount of swearing, but is highly entertaining and informative.Terra Australis charts the epic voyage of the First Fleet from London to Port Jackson, Australia.Tells the story of the campaign for votes for women. This title presents a tale of loyalty, love and courage, set against a vividly realised backdrop of Edwardian Britain, it follows the fortunes of a maid-of-all-work swept up in the feminist militancy of the era.Part personal history, part biography, this title contrasts two coming-of-age narratives: that of Lucia, the daughter of James Joyce, and that of author Mary Talbot, daughter of the eminent Joycean scholar James S Atherton.Described by Andrew Harrison as “the greatest British comic strip ever created”, Charley’s War tells the story of an underage British soldier called Charley Bourne. Charley joins the British Army during World War I at the age of 16 (having lied about his age and told the recruiting officers that he was 18; they conveniently overlook the fact that Charley gives his date of birth on his application form as 1900), and is quickly thrust into the Battle of the Somme. Berlin: City of Stones is the first volume of a trilogy of graphic novels detailing the decline of Weimar Germany.On the 15th of May 1940, the forces of the 3rd Reich surged into the north-west of France. In preparing for complete peace, the unwary French are surprised and defeated without having been able to avoid the manoeuvres. The Germans block off the British Expeditionary force in the ‘Dunkirk Pocket’. This book tells the story.In October 1958, Karl Mertens, a young journalist, arrives in Havana. Having read an interview with Castro in the New York Times, he sets out to meet and interview him. When he arrives, he finds himself in a country plunged into revolution, he quickly becomes involved in its events.Waltz with BBashir is a graphic novel adaptation of an animated film about an israeli soldier’s search for lost memories of his time in Lebanon during the Israeli-Lebanon War of 1982.Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood up to her early adult years in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution.Marzi is Marzena Sowa’s memoir growing up in communist Poland during the lead up to the fall of communism in the 1980’s.